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Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Western literary tradition. He is so famous that he is simply known by his first name, Dante and he is held to be viewed as the national poet of Italy. This He was a literary giant that had a decisive impact on the development not only of Italian literature but on many other aspects of the Renaissance. He  Dante made a significant contribution contributions to the early Renaissance and many of his ideas and themes were developed by later writers, artists, and thinkers. Dante contributed to the development of humanism, the use of the vernacular in literature and challenged the hegemonic nature of the Church and these helped to generate the cultural and intellectual changes known as the Renaissance, which transformed the world forever.

The poet However as was born into one typical of the leading families fractious politics in Florence. His mother died when he was twelveLate Medieval Italy, and he was contracted while still a young boy in marriage to a girl who belonged to another leading family. At some timethe Guelphs soon divided into ideological lines, he saw and fell in love with a young girl called Beatrice, and she was they became two mutually hostile factions the love of his life White and became his museBlack Guelphs. Dante married Gemma DonatiThe White Guelphs, but he remained in love with Beatrice even after her untimely death. The death the party of his beloved led to the poet studying philosophy Dante eventually expelled their former allies and theologycolleagues. However, as he sought some meaning in life. Dante like his family belonged to one of the main factions in Whites returned with the city whose politics was often bloody. Florence was divided between the pro-Imperial Ghibellines and those who supported the Papacy known as the Guelfs. The origin support of this dispute lay in the various conflicts between the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Valois and ousted the Pope. The poet fought at Black faction from the Battle government of Campaldino (1289) when the city’s Guelph faction defeated the Arezzo Ghibellines. After the victorycity, the Guelph factions changed the constitution and Dante had this led to enroll in a Guild, an association the exiling of tradesmen to remain a citizenmany prominent Florentines.<ref>Gilson, S.A., Dante and Renaissance Florence (Vol. 56) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p 113114</ref>

However as was typical of the fractious politics in Late Medieval Italy, the Guelphs soon divided into ideological lines, and they became two mutually hostile factions the White and Black Guelphs. The White Guelphs, the party of Dante eventually expelled their former allies and colleagues. However, the Whites returned with the support of Charles Valois and ousted the Black faction from the government of the city, and this led to the exiling of many prominent Florentines.<ref>Gilson, p 114</ref>.  Dante was exiled due to trumped up charges of corruption. Dante could have returned to his native city if he swore an oath to the Whites and paid a fine. He refused to do both, and this was unsurprising because he had integrity.<ref>Raffa, Guy P. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226702707/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0226702707&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=24706d0e14fc3d9049e3520d13d88844 The Complete Dante worldsDanteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy ] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p 5</ref>. Moreover, he was a party to several attempts to expel the Black Guelphs,’ but these were all failures. Dante became a permanent exile. He was forced to wander Italy. He became dependent on the generosity of powerful nobles.

The issuance publication of the Divine Comedy is often seen as the beginning of the Renaissance and the end of the Late Medieval Period in Italy. This is despite the fact that even though the poem's subject of the great epic is religion and salvation, which . It seems contrary to the spirit of the Renaissance which that extolled the pleasures of this world and the individualto have started with work focused on religion. Dante did not believe that this world was an antechamber to the next world but had its own value and merits.  Unlike conventional Christian morality, he did not think that it was wrong to be happy and to enjoy this life. The great poet did not believe that eternal salvation and earthly happiness were incompatible. Dante also argued that it was necessary for a person to contribute to civic and political life and it was indeed virtuous. This idea proved to be very influential upon later humanists, who played a crucial role in the development of the Renaissance .<ref>Fortin, Ernest L. Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and his precursors (Lexington, Lexington Books, 2002), p 14</ref>.

The exiled Florentine was a great religious poet and theologian. His conception of the dual nature of man, one that was earthly and the other that was eternal was decisive in the development of his political doctrine. He argued in his main political work that there should be a separation of church and state. This was something that greatly contributed to Renaissance political thought. Major thinkers such as Machiavelli under the influence of the great Florentine believed were influenced by Dante and argued that religion had no place in politics and . He believed that politics was a skill and should not be constrained by theological precepts.  When Dante while a deeply religious man by arguing argued that church and state should be separate did much to ensure ensured that the humanists who succeeded him felt free to concentrate on the secular and did not feel world. He also made it clear that it involvement in the secular was not incompatible with their hopes of future salvation. The ideas of Dante not only influenced Renaissance thinkers but also some of the leaders of the Reformation. The exiled Florentine helped to change the discourse on the role of religion in Europe .<ref>Fortin, p 119</ref>.

Dante composed one of the great literary work in Italian if not all literature. His Divine Comedy is an enduring literary masterpiece that has and will stand the test of time. However, the Florentine he was much more than a great poet and he made a significant contribution to the Renaissance. His helped to fashion the poetry of the period and decisively changed the direction of Western literature. Dante helped to raise the Tuscan dialect into the national literary language of Italy. He helped to establish established vernacular languages as literary languages and demonstrated that great writers did not have to use Latin, and this is was perhaps his greatest contribution to the Renaissance.  Dante was a forerunner of the humanist movement, because he argues argued that this life had value and that the individual while a part of the community was significant and had a right to self-expression and even happiness. The poet was also an original political and religious thinker and he argued for the then dangerous idea of a separation of church and state. This persuaded many humanists to adopt a more secular approach that was such a feature of civic humanism. However, it should be noted that the Florentine was also Dante still had a medieval in outlook and he would have disapproved of some of the aspects of the Renaissance in the 15-16th century. Regardless, Dante can be considered because of his immense contributions one of the founders of the Renaissance.

Fortin, Ernest L. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073910327X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=073910327X&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=17f950ed573ce140e1cf1344999c339b Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and his precursors]. (Leington, Lexington Books, 2002).

Dante. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143107194/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0143107194&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=a8a12c048ea535549df2a813834edb78 Divine Comedy translated by Frank Musa ] (London, Penguin Books, 1987, 3 vols). {{MediaWiki:AmNative}}

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